Montana Hunter Numbers Still Down due to Warm Wet Weather

Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks officials have released the latest numbers on hunter success for the past week during the general rifle season.

In the Missoula area FWP spokeswoman Vivaca Crowser said numbers were down again last week due to the warm, rainy weather.

“This third weekend of general hunting season here in west Central Montana was a little busier than we had seen so far,” said Crowser. “It really has been a slow start to the season, but now with some cooler temps and snow starting to fall in the higher elevations, and the rut picking up we really started to see more hunters through the check stations, and more deer and elk, as well.”

Crowser pointed out that in west central Montana, the Anaconda check station has been eliminated due to historically low numbers.

“If you look at the Bonner check station and the Darby check station, we’ve seen 4,769 hunter trips,” she said. “We’ve had 145 elk, 33 mule deer, and 160 whitetail deer for a 7.2 percent hunter success rate.”

“So far, our hunters have checked 320 whitetail deer, including 171 bucks, they’ve checked 39 mule deer and 33 elk, and the overall success rate for our region is 5.8 percent, and that’s down from last year when it was 7.1 percent,” said Tabish. “This time last year, our hunters had 50 elk, we have more mule deer than last year, but the whitetail deer is the one that’s sizably down. Last year we had 268 bucks come through and this year we only have 171.”

General Rifle Season continues through the Thanksgiving weekend and ends November 25.